The Lost Rose
by aspentree11
Summary: After Draco dies seven years after his seventh year, he is awakened once again with a second chance. Draco/Hermione
1. Chapter 1

"Cr…Crabbe?" He squinted, "I—Is that you?" Draco layed there on the ground, squalled together like a frightened baby. The figure in front of him looked just like Draco remembered — Too big for that old Hogwarts uniform, his hair uncombed, his eyes bulging out of his skin. It was amazing…A complete replica.

Except their was a problem.

"Yes, it's me," He grunted. Draco's eyes widened. Draco couldn't breath. It had to be a lie…A trick…a test. The-Supposed-Crabbe held out his hand, and at first Draco was hesitant but then he grabbed it and Crabbe pulled him up. They both stared at eachother for a moment.

"But you're dead," Draco stated. Crabbe nodded.

"And I'm dead too?" Draco asked in a small voice.

"Are you?" Crabbe replied. Draco squinted at him, opened his mouth like he was going to spit something demanding and fearful, but then the words disappeared inside his mouth. Draco finally looked around. He was at Hogwarts again— In the girl's bathroom. He hadn't been here in years…and yet…He swirved toward a mirror and let out a sound of horror.

He…He looked sixteen. He recognized that straight-laced haircut, those purple circles around his eyes, his newly-came body. He touched his badly-shaven face and gaped.

He was…young again.

"But I died," He whispered, as he leaned into the sink, "Somebody was holding my hand…Telling me it was alright…Why am I here? Aren't I supposed to be in…Be in Heaven?"

"Or," He added, with a gulp, "Hell?" He swirved around, staring at Crabbe again. This was all wrong…Nothing was right.

"Or is this what hell is?" He whispered to himself. Crabbe let out a laugh that he had barely heard even when Crabbe was alive. Draco heaved.

"No, you're not dead," Crabbe told him calmly, "But you did die." At first, Draco just stared at him. But then, he started to laugh. A deranged, horrible laugh that finally reflected the broken madness in his soul.

"I'm hallucinating, aren't I?" Draco laughed madly, "I'M NUTS!"

"You're not hallucinating."

"Yes I am, I'm talking to somebody who isn't there!" Draco spat in laughter. Crabbe looked at him as if he was contemplating what he should do. Talk to him? Hit him? Yell? But all he did was reach out at him. He barely touched his shoulder before Draco recoiled and screamed.

"D—Don't touch me!"

"I think I just proved that you believe I'm here," Crabbe told him with a smirk. A rush went through Draco's body instantly.

"W—What do you want?" Draco quivered.

"To give you a second chance," Crabbe said firmly. Draco looked at him flabbergasted.

"A second chance?" He asked slowly.

"I'm guessing you remember this year?" Crabbe asked. Draco, not meaning to, turned back toward the mirror. He examined himself again, as if wanting a different answer, but it was too late. He saw who he was clearly, and he hated what he was actually here, wasn't he? Standing here at present time, in the girl's bathroom?

"Sixth," He mumbled instantly.

"Yes," Crabbe said, "The year you finally broke down." Draco's eyes narrowed at him through the mirror reflection.

"I was a boy! I WAS A BOY AND I HAD TO KILL A MAN! I WAS A BOY AND—"

"It wasn't only that, mate. You went through something else that year." Suddenly, Draco spun around toward him fully, more momentum then ever. His eyes were large with a mix of fury and fear. He could've pretended that he didn't know what Crabbe was saying, but by the look in Crabbe's eyes, he knew that Crabbe knew something.

"How do you know that?" He hissed.

"That you loved her?" Crabbe asked, with a smirk, "Does it matter?"

"I didn't love her, I was confused, I just—"

"You loved her," Crabbe said aggressively, and added quickly "And now it's your chance."

"What?" Draco sneered.

"You have been given a second chance, Draco. To change your actions. To play it different. To change fate. If I were you,I'd take it." Draco was about to lunge at him, but then Crabbe disappeared. Out of thin air. Just like that. Draco swirved in a circle, looking in all direction.

All he could hear was dripping water.

"Crabbe?" He asked softly. No reply.

"CRABBE!" He roared, but there was no response.

For the first time in Draco's life, he wished he was dead. A sob seemed to come up in him, but he stopped himself. This was real, he had to get through it, killing himself wouldn't do anything for him. What a horrible nightmare he was in… But then, when he really thought about it, a little bit of hope appeared, a tiny bit of peace.

For the last time he looked into the mirror. He hated how he looked. He hated what he was, how he turned out, the choices he made. He would do anything to change it. And even though he knew he could only do so much now, he knew one thing that he could do.

He would finally win Hermione Granger's heart.


	2. Chapter 2: Its Kinda A Funny Story

_**Four Hours Later**_

"Mr. Malfoy," McGonagall's voice drawled behind her desk, "Could you care to explain your actions?" She was maddening, she was. Completely maddening.

His eyes looked up at his hands admittedly, and fought down a smirk. Oh, how Draco forgot how easily a disaster at Hogwarts could occur. He had only been here for four hours, four bloody hours, and yet he was already sitting in front of that old hag, getting in trouble. Record? He thought so. His eyes looked up into her's, piercing deadly. Her eyes didn't look away though, but yet bored into his. For a moment, they both just looked at each other. He concluded his outcomes very quickly.

She was either:  
A. Going to put him in detention for the next year.

Or

B. Expel him.

_Expel me,_ He sneered inside his head, _I dare you. _

"What is up with you, Mr. Malfoy?" She flicked off her glasses, like she was going to go all 'student versus teacher' "It is the first day of school and you already have three detentions on your hands. Maybe you should tell me what happened?" Ah, so he had detention. It could be worse though – He could be stuck with Snape. Snape, the greasy-haired git. Not only would that be agonizing, but yet severely awkward since he's well...dead. He looked up at her, and she actually looked like she wanted an answer. What was the question again? Oh, yeah. What is up with him? He would tell her that he was really a dead twenty-eight year old who shouldn't be here, but that wasn't necessarily why.

When did this mess truly, truly start? Oh, it must've been the moment his pretty butt stepped out of that bathroom. It was quite a story actually...

_When he had walked out of that bathroom, he didn't just not know where he was going but what he was doing. Sure, he could've found Blaise or Goyle or Crabbe (who, none the less, was supposed to be dead), but they were probably in a corner picking buggers. He had outgrown them in his second year; he was just stuck with him because nobody understood that he was a human. You know, with a heart and lungs and blonde hair. Maybe it was because he was smoking hot, he didn't know, but for God Sakes, couldn't somebody ever give him a break?_

This must be what Azkaban is like,_ he thought to himself, _we're all just prisoner's in our own nightmares at this place._  
_

"_I need a game plan," He remembered saying to himself__ thoughtfully__._

"_Quickly," He added under his breath. __So he did what every atom in his body told him not to – He strutted straight into Potion's all by himself. Like a big boy who could or could not be possibly on drugs. _

**Game Plan #1: Act Casual. **

_It was the only bloody class he ever remembered that he dreaded on the first day of school, so he figured he might just start there. Being miserable was what made the first day memorable! Who would stop him anyways? Apparently, nobody really cared to stop the terrifying Draco Malfoy from anything. Except for maybe that bloody first year who tried to trip him on the way there. But he'd get her later. _

_Still, he took a deep breath when he got to the door. Composure was everything. And then walked straight in with his head tilted high. Now, he chided to himself, there were only three things he could ever remember in Potions:_

_**1.**__ It was the worst class ever. He almost walked out of there the moment he walked in if he didn't see that frizzy-haired know-it-all standing there. Of course, she didn't dare look at him. How could she, when her future ah, what did he use to calm him? __Weasel__? Was next to her. If he was her, he wouldn't let his eyes off him either – Those weasels can be quite sneaky at times. _

_**2.**__ Nobody would ever look at him. What was he? The boogey man? Come on people, just look at him. He wasn't scary. Sure, he was a death eater and everybody knew it, but come on, is that so terrifying? It wasn't like he was going to start avada-kedvra-ing anybody who wouldn't save him a seat. _

_**3.**__ He sucked at it. They were complete mad – All of them He couldn't brew a potion if his life depended on it, and they stick him in Potions? For gods sakes, what he do to any of them? It seems like the only person who he was ever out to kill was the only person who didn't care. And, also, did they actually expect him to...listen? If anything, he spent his days copying Granger. He had never understood her brain, but he always had to admit - She was pretty brilliant. _

_When he got in though, Slughorn was lecturing about something stupid and unimportant. Slughorn twitched around and as soon as Draco made an entrance__,__ and adverted their blink-long glance just as quickly as he made it__._

Of course he did_, Draco sneered in his head, _Slughorn was terrified of him_. _

**Game Plan #2: Observe your opponents. **

_But Slughorn continued to talk as Draco watched the Golden Trio bicker about a bloody book at the corner of his eyes. He heard the story - The ignorant Snape left his deepest secrets in a book in the hands of a moronic Sixth Year. Stupid, but did cause one hand of humorous damage. Enough to even make him snicker, the first snicker he had made in months in those days. But whatever, the book was nothing now. _

_Still, his eyes lingered into Granger's. Such an odd web of different colours of brown. Did Weasley appreciate her? Probably not. And neither did him when he was a sixth year. But oh, he would. He would this time. If Crabbe was right, he would. Was Crabbe right? _

_His grey eyes shot back at Slughorn just as he was explaining the challenge of __The Draught of Something- Nobody-Will-Ever-Use. __But when his brain raced to a radical idea his hand shot into the air like a bug. At first, Slughorn ignored him, but as his grey eyes flashed at him Slughorn couldn't ignore the many students watching him. How many times has Draco ever raised his hand? They were probably asking as whispers spread out into the open._

_Either that or they were talking about his sexiness. Probably both, actually. _

_He cleared his throat, "Yes, Mr. Malfoy?" A small smile appeared on Draco's face when he heard the fear lingering in his tone. Sweet serendipity. _

**Game Plan #3: Be as disrespectful as possible. Who knows, maybe it's sexy to Granger. **

_"Not be disrespectful, Professor," He said this coolly of course, "But don't you think, saying this is the first day, that we should be in partners?" _Yes_, he said inside his head in bliss, _Perfect_. __A devilish smile hung on his face and Slughorn gaped like a giraffe chewing. _

_"I-Well, Mr. Malfoy...The point of this is for me to see the true witches and wizards in this room," He said with a small, reassuring smile, and turned back to the audience smoothly "Plus, the prize given is only for one pers-" Yes, yes, he knew that. _

_"But, Professor," Draco interrupted again tightly, "It _is _the first day. I'm sure you could do your prize any other day, yes? My father always said you were such a great teacher." He heard the breaths being sucked in around him. Yes, morons, he just threatened a teacher. Get over it. _

_"I mean, we do have nine other months in the year, don't we?" Slughorn's face looked light a twist between tightness and fear. _

_Draco's eyebrows perked up. _Bingo.

_"Well," He said, his voice croaking after a moment of deadly silence, "I guess we could have partners. Er, just-" But people were already bustling around, half cautious because of Draco's unusual voice of objection and half relieved that they didn't have to start this class alone. His eyes followed Weasley within the tangled mess of anxious bodies, who seemed to be snatched with that horrid overly-giddy Brown. Potter seemed to, in luck, be with the desperate Neville Longbottom who already looked as if he was going to explode. _

_His eyes followed Hermione, who didn't just seem flabbergasted to be left alone but completely deluded into thinking she was the last one left. A small true smile grew under his nose. Was this the Dead-Crabbe creating sheer luck for him, or was Draco actually doing things right for once in his life?_

_His eyes stared at her hard until finally she found his gaze. At first, her eyes darted away as if their glance was a pure accident, but then they found his eyes again and she looked stricken. He saw her lips whisper to Ron, who seemed too preoccupied to even listen. Draco made her way toward her, pretending not hear whoever was calling his name behind him. He froze in front of her and she shared a look of disgust. _

_"What?" She asked sharply, after a long moment of awkward silence. He shrugged casually. Thats what normal guys who didn't hate her did, right? Shrugged casually?_

_"Would you like to be my partner?" He asked smoothly. Immediately, her eyes scrolled around, looking for whoever he must've been talking to. Until her eyes stopped moving and she realized he truely was talking to her. Her mouth gaped. _

**Game Plan #4: Don't stare too tightly at her body – For some reason girls take it personally.**

_"Be my-NO!" She said, quite abruptly, "I would not like to be your-"_

"There are no more partners, Granger." She was so stupid. She actually bothered to look around! What was he, Moaning Myrtle?

"_Granger," He said tightly as her overly-white skin grew even more white, "There are no__ more partners." Finally, her eyes locked into his willingly. And man, they were pretty freakin' mad. _

"_Fine,"__ She spat._

_And that was how it started – Because she didn't want a partner. _

_She swirled around toward her...ah, what were they? Well, he didn't know. Those potion things. _

_She got started on whatever-they-were-making. He crept behind her, looking over her shoulder (which was surprisingly not too hard – She was a midget compared to him), and seeing the bean she was trying to get the juice out of. Okay, so maybe he wasn't that good at Potions, but he remembered this! Potter seemed to teach him a lot when it came to screwing up in front of Granger! You know, crushing instead of cutting. It made sense at least. He sniggered. _

"_Do you-?"_

"_NO!" She barked. But she obviously did, because whatever she was doing she clearly couldn't do. Did she expect him to correct him? He didn't want to get her _too _mad, but she was doing it wrong!_

"_But Granger—." _Forget it_, he thought to himself as he rolled his eyes_. _He watched her struggle for a few more moments, nearly cutting off numerous fingers, including one of his own. He stood impatiently, tapping his foot, just to annoy her really. _

_She was quite amusing to annoy. _

"_You know cutting it vertically isn't going to—."  
_

"_MALFOY!" She barked again. His eyes na__rrowed. Quite an impatient lady wasn't she? _

"_What?" He said with an amused smirk, "I was just going to say to crush it." Her suspicious eyes folded into ice-daggers. __Really hot ice-daggers, actually. _

"_What do you mean...Crush it? It says to cut it!"__ She said sharply, her eyes flickering back onto a book. _

"_OH!" Draco exclaimed in false-surprise, "That's what you're doing! Following a book! Isn't that what you threw a fit about last year?" Okay, so maybe it wasn't necessary. The comment was for mere comic relief__– Something to laugh about. _

_Well, for him at least__.__ She, apparently, had a lack of sense of humour. _

_She dropped the jumping bean onto the ground. _

"_What?" She asked sharply. He crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows. _

"_Just crush it__," He repeated. Her nose lifted in the air. _

"_Why should I—." It was too late. Draco grabbed the bean from the ground, held it between his fingers and crushed it amongst the side of the knife. She let out a gasp as juice spilled everywhere. He scooped it up into fragile white hands and put it into the handy-down pot. Her eyes were flaming. _

"_That was—that was uncalled for!" She exclaimed loudly, making the partners beside them turn around. _

"_What I'm doing is right," he swore to her, "Just watch, alright? You'll see—."_

"_But that is not what it said in the bo—."_

_"Sometimes Granger," He said, his grey eyes flas__hing, "You can't always follow things that are said. Just do it. Or else, one day, you may just be all by yourself.__" _

_And with that, he took the next bean and crushed it. _

_**Game Plan #5: Forget 1-4. Woman are stupid. **_

_Draco didn't know when Granger started screaming at him. It was probably when he accidentally put in thirteen beans instead of ten, or maybe when he put two rattails in, rather than 1/4__th__ of a tail. It turned out, he might just not be half bad at Potions after all, but to her – Oh god, to her, he was a catastrophe. _

"_MALFOY!" She shouted, and Draco couldn't help but realize that poor Slughorn was struggling to not turn around. She was going to grab the last ingredients but OH—Too late! Draco just dumped the entire stash. _

_She gasped loudly, a suck of air that made her jump back. Her eyes widened, letting those brown colours shine. He couldn't help but be intrigued as the pot of gunk turned into a bright pink, when it was supposed to be a clear shade of Lilac. _

"_DRACO MALFOY, ITS SUPPOSED TO BE LILAC. WHAT THE H—." But then, as if they were at some school of magic or something (Pft! Imagine that, Granger!) the potion turned Lilac! A clear shade actually!_

"_I'm pretty sure that's Lilac Granger, is it not?" He asked her. Despite her highly aggravated disgust on her face, she couldn't hide the fact that she was impressed. I mean, who couldn't be? It was Draco Malfoy. _

**Draco Malfoy: 1**

**Granger: 0**

_And yet Crabbe made it seem hard for him to win her heart. One more period, and he may just win this odd, new game. _

_And oh god, was that Granger leaning toward him? Her eyes locked into his? Was she going to...kiss him?_

_Her forehead grew closer to his, and for just a moment it felt like the world stopped. Sometimes he forgot how much he sorta-kinda fell for her, and never really got over it. Was it just a delusional idea? He spent the last years just imagining "what if's". What if he wasn't a Malfoy? What if he was put in Gryffindor? What if Harry Potter ended up being his best friend? Yes, it was a possibility that he liked her in his sixth year, but every time he started thinking about it, it started to become more and more like a dream. Just liking something he couldn't have. But that's why he never let himself think about it. And yet he was here, dead (not dead), trying to decide if he really liked her or if he was just taking orders from a dead guy. _

_But then suddenly, a hot flash hit his cheeks. It surprised him so deeply that he fell backward, his head falling against the hard tiled floors. His vision going black. _

_And then it started. The nightmare. The flashback. _

_He was in the Malfoy Manor again, and he was only seventeen. He should've been at school that year, but the war seemed to hold off his seventh year and he had to stay home. For some stupid reason, Harry Potter and his friends crossed into their mansion like morons they were. He couldn't remember how they got there, or even why, he just remembered rushing down the stairs because his mother was screaming. He didn't know they were down there though, not at first._

_But then, he saw her. Just as he hit the bottom of the stairs._

_It didn't matter how swollen she was, he'd recognize that bushy hair anywhere...And it made him freeze. It wasn't just the sight of her that made him want to throw up, it was everything. The fact that she still even existed. That she was alive. That she wasn't captured until now. It hit him – All the emotions he had been trying to hold back, but it hit him before he was ready to block them out. It hit him like a hurricane. A hurricane running into a tornado. _

_He didn't know why, or how it happened, but it was too late. _

_He swore to Bellatrix he didn't know them, that he couldn't tell. She knew he was lying. She saw him constantly look into Granger's eyes. _

_So she tortured him. _

_And that was why Draco spent the first hour of his morning screaming in the infirmary. Because over and over in his head he was watching Granger get torchured. _

_Well, that was what consumed his first hour. Pretty bad, eh?_

_He didn't realize then that he had three more hours to go before real hell broke loose. _


End file.
